Some ramblings.
I took some time to read in a coffee shop this morning. Mostly just reread some Apex Predator diet bits of Jamie Lewis’ book, starting with the “if you’re already lean” post.
I may give some variation of this a shot in the near future. It seems like a logical progression from where I am right now.
Also, based on some of his quotes, it seems I also need to read some Tacitus. And get back to reading Herodotus. Frigging Scythians.
So obviously because of the name, I was also thinking about apex predators, and Wikipedia has a list: Grizzlies. Polar Bears. Orcas. Jaguars. (Obviously several more.)
Going back to the jaguar thing. Jaguars are the apex predators of the Amazon.
This is perhaps the most apexy predator photo I’ve ever seen:
Two jaguars fighting over an anaconda.
When I stepped outside to head home, they launched the daily patrol of F-15s. Loud. More apex predators.
In that story I’ve been reading, Linley has now demonstrated his superiority over that Blackcloud Panther, and subdued it. He now has a giant beast to ride around. That’s pretty awesome.
@T3hPwnisher talked about his “Bear Diet” the other day, and I had looked into what bears actually eat. Bugs and plant shoots, mostly. Along with lots of salmon, berries and honey later in the season.
So yesterday I looked at what Jaguars eat. The answer is… everything that moves.
Jaguars eat a variety of prey that includes more than 85 species range-wide. Jaguar prey species include peccaries, capybaras, pacas, agoutis, deer, opossum, rabbits, armadillos, caimans, turtles, livestock, as well as various reptiles, birds and fish species.
I thought I had a varied diet, but it pales in comparison.
By the time she was 18 months old, my daughter had eaten and enjoyed pig, chicken, turkey, cow, bison, goat, rabbit, frog, sheep, duck, clams, mussels, scallops, oysters, shrimp, lobster, crab, and a diversity of fish. I’m probably forgetting some.
Her absolute favorites were shrimp, duck and mussels.
Meat options in America are pretty lame in comparison to the jaguar’s.
There’s been some behavior problems in kindergarten recently, so the counselor has been letting her sit in with the different first grade classes. She’s been holding her own and doing well.
We’ve been trying to get to the root of it, and the evidence is convincing me that she’s just bored. For better or worse, she’s my kid, and I see a lot of myself in her. I also had the boredom problems. Learned too quickly for the class, saw busy-work for what it was and often just didn’t do it. Sounds like she’s doing the same.
I didn’t have the behavior problems though.
So, I’m probably not going to quit my job and homeschool my kids – the social interaction and social skill development from school is too valuable… plus I need a break – but I might find a way to work in something like that. There’s so much for her to learn, and she picks things up very quickly, so I don’t see why her learning should be held back by the rest of the class.
There’s a book I ran across several years ago; it was one of the books used for educating the British aristocrats and other economic elite during the rise of the British empire. “The Universal Preceptor: Being a General Grammar of Arts, Sciences and Useful Knowledge”, first published in 1811.
History is a good guide, I think. This is what the kids were taught, and then we can see what they accomplished in the next 50 years of their life.
This book basically covers everything – e.g., it talks about useful crops, how fabrics are made from them, and the economic utility of them, and the countries that make them, and who lives in those countries, and their religions and cultures – and works through it in a fairly logical manner. Some of the information is dated, but the overarching idea is still solid.
Sometimes parts appear racist, but if you keep reading you’ll realize it’s not. It starts with a premise that Knowledge is what brings people out of “savagery”. And while it begins by talking about the savagery various tribal cultures, it continues by describing how base and savage the people of Europe and Britain were before the Romans. It then gives full credit to the many peoples who contributed Knowledge to the world. No negative connotations at all.
While there is a bit of British Empire superiority, it still seems far less than the American exceptionalism you see in our modern textbooks.
If I had unlimited time and motivation, I’d make a modernized internet-based version of it. It’s like if Wikipedia were turned into a logical narrative, explaining who we are, where we are, what we know, and how it’s all connected.
So, I printed out a copy of it, and will bind it into a book to read with my kids. Much better option than a screen.
Which means I’m currently trying to dip in and out of the absolutely monstrously complex world of bookbinding. I need something that works well enough, doesn’t take too much time, effort or money, and is fairly durable.
This is a candid shot as I was working through this. I looked over at it and questioned what century I lived in. Nothing about this photo was staged.
Just because we have new ways of doing things doesn’t mean the old ones stopped working.
But now, off to the gym.
